tantric_thelema.pdf

Tantric Influences on Thelema

by: Genevieve Petty

It is obvious to even the most casual observer that Tantric practices in Hinduism and Buddhism share an

element of sex with Thelema, the religion promulgated by Aleister Crowley. But how deep and how

wide is the Tantric influence on Thelema? This paper will explore this question.

To begin, another question must be answered. How could Tantra in Asia influence the ideas of a man

born in England in 1875? This particular man, Aleister Crowley, was a privileged member of English

society who, as a young and adventurous spirit, took up the sport of mountain climbing. In 1902 he

made a successful assault on the peak K-2 (Chogo Ri) in the Himalayans. He returned to the area in

1905 for a disastrous climb of Kangchenjunga, after which he trekked through China with his wife. His

travels between 1900 and 1904 included extensive parts of India as well as Sri Lanka. 1 Therefore, since

Crowley was travelling in Asia, often in the company of Tibetan sherpas, he could have been easily

exposed to Tantric teachings and practices.

Another source of Tantric ideas could have been late Victorian society. During the latter half of the

Nineteenth Century, several people -- Noyes with his "Male Continence," Stockham with her Karezza"

techniques, Randolph with his "Anseiratic Mysteries" -- spontaneously discovered forms of mindful

masturbation for which they made great claims for health and bliss. While these sexual practices are not

exactly Tantra, they have enough similarity that people of today mislabel them as Tantra. 2 In the occult

and avant-garde circles which Crowley loved to frequent, such shocking ideas would naturally be

discussed as an affront to Victorian repression. Who is to say that these sexual notions could not have

precipitated into English minds from the vaguest of rumours brought home from Colonial India?

Now that I have postulated how Crowley could have geographically encountered Tantra, it becomes

necessary to define Tantra. Although Tantric texts date only to medieval India, Catherine Yronwode

contends the origin of its practices probably resides in Dravidic rites of yoni puja and linga puja. In pre-

Vedic times, the indigenous people honored the vulva and penis both with offerings accompanied by

prayers to phallic-shaped and yoni-shaped statues and stones and by deliberate sexual arousal of the

genitals of persons representing fertility forces. These rituals constituted the oldest human religion, 3 sex

worship, a view shared by scholars like Marija Gimbutas 4 and Riane Eisler. 5

Miranda Shaw discovered that Tantric Buddhism developed as a protest movement by lay people during

India's Pala Period. At that time monastic orders flourished and had acquired ecclesiastical privileges of

wealth and status what were not shared with ordinary Buddhists. Desirous to return to the "universalism"

of Mahayana Buddhism, lay people developed Tantric practices which allowed them to live everyday

lives and still pursue enlightenment/liberation. As their method, direct experience of ecstatic states of

consciousness superceded the arid scholasticism of monks and nuns. 6 Eventually, monastic universities

such as Nalanda, Vikramasla, Odantapur and Somapur incorporated these Tantric techniques into their

curriculum. 7

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Tantric Influences on Thelema

As Tantra developed, influences from contemporary religious practices can be traced. Hatha yoga

contributed body postures to Tantric practice. Bhakti yoga added devotion as the attitude to be

maintained by Tantric practitioners. Other incorporations from orthodox Hinduism include 1)

visualization of a Deity during the rite, 2)recitation of a mantra, 3)concentration on a yantra, which is

usually an iconographic symbol of the vulva, and 4)tapas, which are austerities such as fasting or

refraining from touching the person embodying Deity. Concepts of kundalini influenced through

introducing techniques of breath control and semen retention in order to raise subtle energy streams

within practitioners' bodies. 8 Two forms of Tantra emerged in India: these were identified as the right-

hand path and the left-hand path. The right-hand path stressed the meditational aspects of Tantric

practices to achieve ecstasy and usually confined its practitioners to a monogamous relationship. The

left-hand path stressed the physiological elements and preferred multiple partners, often simultaneously,

during sex. 9

When Buddhism reached Tibet, it encountered two religious streams which mingled with it to create

Tibetan Tantrism. One of these was a native animism called Bon, in which complementary male and

female Deities were worshipped and propitiated. As centuries of Tibetan Buddhism produced countless

images of boddhisattvas, each painting continued to contain its male saint with its female shakti sitting

on his lap, often in an erotic pose. If asked why the female figure was always present, Buddhist monks

replied that enlightenment for a male was unattainable without the female half of energy. The other

strand was Taoist alchemy. This consisted of exercises of strict breath, muscle and semen control that

were believed to promote longevity, perhaps even immortality. Some Tibetan scholars claim that Lao-

Tzu himself referenced "yoni puja" as the "valley spirit." 10 Anyway, Tibetans merged these native

religious elements with Indian Buddhism. Up until China's invasion of Tibet under Communism, monks

at nearly all monasteries were required to spend two years at least in specifically Tantric practices.

Usually when a monk was about seventeen, he was sent into isolation inside a cave. His only contact

would be a woman, usually around thirty years old, who would initiate him into Tantric sex. He would

be fed by her and ministered to by her alone. He would see on one else. When she was absent, the monk

would be expected to meditate upon her and upon having sex with her until his imagination became as

vivid as reality. At this point his lover became a "tulpa." Gradually, by lengthening the time between her

visits, she would wean the monk from experiencing physiological ecstasy into experiencing spiritual

ecstasy. 11

In India, Tantric practices began to be perceived as only a left-hand path. Suspicions and fears drove

Tantric practitioners into greater secrecy. By the time the British took India, Tantra was underground. Its

women initiates had lost so much status that they were perceived by Indians and British alike as glorified

temple prostitutes. 12 Vamamarga was the name by which this left hand path was known.

Yet it is quite obvious that Tantra is a form of yoga, and the final purpose of each form of yoga is

integration of the individual consciousness with the cosmic phenomenal manifestation. 13 It differs from

asceticism, which renounces everything to seek such perfection, in that perfection is being realized

through "fulfillment of all wishes." 14 In the end the Tantric practitioner hopes to abolish all duality

within the unity of cosmic transcendence. 15 Buddhists call this feat liberation. To achieve it, however,

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Tantric Influences on Thelema

Tantric practitioners immerse themselves in sensual experience because "the inferior levels of

consciousness cannot be effortlessly controlled and surpassed unless fully and frantically, intensely and

totally, lived in the whole plentitude of their power. 16 Not only can Tantric practitioners stay in the

"world," they are required to embrace all features of everyday life. 17 As Tripura Rahasya said:

"Second-hand knowledge of the self gathered

from books or gurus can never emancipate a

man until its truth is rightly investigated and

applied; only direct realization will do that.

Realize yourself, turning the mind inward." 18

Sex is a vital aspect of ordinary human life. In Tantra, sex is worshipped either as a principle or as an

actual practice. An example of worshipping sex as a principle is a ritual performed by a man in Kerala

wherein he abducted a virgin having outstanding physical features. He divested her into nudity, anointed

her with liquor, invoked Shakti by chanting mantras and gesturing mudras, gave her flowers and then set

her free. Throughout the rite, he strove to remain free of all lust for her. 19 Others engage in sex while

controlling their breathing into a relaxed pace, controlling their minds into focus on Shakti or Shiva or

some object and controlling semen by the rhythm of contractions. 20 Mere sexual pleasure is never the

goal although frequently attained. 21 As Dinu Roman explains:

"The sexual beatitude raised at the

transcendental level of an extraordinary

psychic experience with a spiritual character

reflects then, the ineffable happiness of a subtle

cosmic nature known in yoga as ananda and in

Tantra as samarasa." 22

Female partners transform through such awareness into living symbols (Para Shakti) and men embody

the Everlasting Male (Shiva). 23 Human sex in Tantra strives to unite this cosmic pair of fundamental

forces while simultaneously obliterating awareness of any individuality. Robert C. Svoboda considers

Tantric rituals to be essentially sacrifices of "self" into a purgative fire that destroys maya. The female

partner is the fire and semen represents the "self" that is consumed. 24 It is felt that unless consistently

incinerated, the human ego will balloon out of proportion and automatically cause cosmic disruption. 25

Secondary and yet essential to the above cosmic act is the personal achievement of states of altered

consciousness. Every successful practitioner reports expansion of consciousness as the credential of her/

his accomplishment. 26 According to Tantra, ordinary wakefulness is considered to be only a "very small

fraction of our native intelligence." 27 This process of mental liberation has been compared to an inverse

evolution wherein a practitioner must return through and discard each and all stages of terrestrial

evolution until he/she arrives at the unique origin, the emptiness that is and creates Sratantrya. 28 Such

effort releases the entirety of human potential. 29 Occasionally, diet and drugs were combined to induce

ecstasies, especially in female participants. 30 But the primary mechanism of achieving expanded

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Tantric Influences on Thelema

consciousness during sex related to semen retention. If the male could refrain from ejaculation, the

semen would transmute into ojas and tejas, subtle streams of energy which would travel from the

perineum at the base of the spine (root chakra) through the lymphatic system into the brain. The ojas and

tejas would then be processed by the brain. The tejas would radiate as an aura while the person united

with Universal Consciousness, while the ojas would be used for longevity. Ojas and tejas would also be

produced in women through multiple orgasms. Some practitioners claimed that their menstrual cycles

were interrupted and ovulations altered through such process. 31 One reference regarding longevity is

found in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika III on page 87:

"The yogin who can protect his bindu

overcomes death, because death comes by

discharging bindu, and life is prolonged by its

preservation." 32

Other Tantric goals involve acquiring power to effect a practitioner's will in the world. Tantric principles

insist that "any kind of action from the part of any being, must automatically, through reflection,

influence any other form on the same level of creation." 33 Thus, even Randolph in his "Anseiratic

Mysteries," considered the "nuptive moment," (orgasm) a prime opportunity for prayer. 34 Especially

Tantrics of the left-hand path used the exercises to gain psychic powers. One Tantric practioner

expressed it as "I do what I do so I can do what other men cannot do." 35

In Thelema the ultimate goal is the discovery and development of each individual's Own True Will. That

does not imply doing as one pleases . Crowley wrote:

"Each member must make it his main work to

discover for himself his own true will, and to

do it, and do nothing else." 36

"The essential attainment is the perfect

annihilation of that personality which limits

and oppresses his True Self." 37

"He must accomplish … identification of

himself with the impersonal idea of Love." 38

Like Tantra then, Thelema's goal in its sexual practice transcends pleasure while retaining it. That goal

attempts to merge the individual into a Universal. Also like Tantra, Thelema is not necessarily a practice

of denial or renunciation. While it can include such disciplines, it also practices hedonistic indulgences

in all forms of sensual activity -- and not just sex. Experimentation with activities and procedures is a

feature of its approach -- just like Tantra's demand that "direct experience" supplant scholarly analysis in

the quest for reality.

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Tantric Influences on Thelema

Crowley and his followers repeatedly searched for states of altered consciousness. It is well-known that

Crowley employed drugs for this purpose. His sexual magic was also aimed at achieving "emancipation

from thought … consecration as a pure vehicle of energies." 39 Like the vamamarga, he and other

Thelemites also used sex acts as a means of focusing will at moments of orgasm to effect specific

outcomes. In other words, sex was used to gain power, exactly like the left-hand tantrics. Thus, both

short-term and ultimate goals of Thelema and Tantra bear striking similarities, which implies influence

through the creator of Thelema.

Tantric practices are often criticized by feminists for objectifying individual women and thus excluding

them from the role of spiritual questor. These women are perceived as mere "means" for male attainment

of enlightenment or power. Since relationship is as irrelevant as pleasure to the final accomplishment of

transcendence, the personality of the female partner is ignored and replaced by a symbolic Goddess in

the minds of practitioners. However, Tantric women practitioners are encouraged to perceive their lovers

as the god Shiva, the Everlasting Male principle, rather than actual men during sex. 40 Many women,

such as Yeshe Tsogyal and Dakmedma, achieved status as yoginis themselves. 41 In the instances of

worship without any sexual acts which occur as Tantra, those female vehicles might be said to serve

only as objects.

Crowley developed the concept of the "Scarlet Woman," a female partner who assisted a magus through

sex into experience of transcendence and attainment of powers. This magical partner was viewed as

symbolic as in Tantra. Crowley wrote that "to work the magick, you must first be united with Divinity

… once this "marriage" has been consummated…" 42 and "Once you "know" Her (or Him) all

subsequent "earthly" ecstasies take the form of devotional offerings to the Great Lover who regards the

devotee with increasingly sweeter embraces until finally the embrace is eternal." 43 The bodies of these

women became instruments through which Thelemites sought spiritual access. Their personalities,

uniquenesses as individuals were unimportant. They facilitated a male's spiritual development and were

neither taught nor expected to have magical ambitions or spiritual attainments of their own. A Thelemite

friend of mine used as his partner a woman who neither believed in Thelema nor cared about performing

magic -- and was in fact, professedly Christian. Crowley lists several women as having been his Scarlet

Woman: Rose Edith Kelly, Leila Waddell, Dorothy Olsen, Leah Hirsig. He also tells us that Victor

Newberg served him in a similar manner. While all of these people are called "assistant" by Crowley,

and all have magical names, only Victor Newberg, his male lover, has a magical title, indicating

recognition of equality with its attendant possibility of spiritual development through the practices. And

as "frater", or brother, only men seem to have been accepted as Crowley's apprentices -- Raoul Loveday,

Norman Mudd, Frank Bennett. 44 While words of gender equality ("Every man and every woman is a

star" 45 ) exist in Thelemic texts, such was and is not now practiced.

In Tantra, practitioners so immerse themselves in experience that they transcend experience into an

expanded consciousness. To do this they become "mindful" of each and every act, each and every

thought, each and every emotion in experience. The frantic, intense living of both sexual and non-sexual

emotions is called Shakipata and leads into the frantic, intense living of each moment in time called

Nirvikalpa. 46 Through such "mindfulness" they banish past and present into an Eternal Now, escaping

linear constructs of time and space which is a human mental framework. Achievement requires "tireless

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